The UK company Bramble Energy, which is based in Crawley and a developer of fuel cell technology, has achieved ‘a milestone in marine history’ by launching the world’s first hydrogen-electric boat powered by a trademarked PCBFC (printed circuit board fuel cell). The lead partner in the HyTime project and working alongside custom engine builder Barrus, Bramble Energy has produced a demonstration vessel that showcases the potential of its PCBFC technology to help decarbonise the marine sector.

The 57ft-long narrowboat was launched onto the water in Sheffield, where it successfully completed emissions-free testing using a ‘custom marinised fuel cell system’. This has the potential to provide the vessel with a range of about 600 miles using the 14kg of hydrogen stored on-board; the boat also has additional power that is supplied from solar panels on the boat’s roof to a 22kWh battery system.

In 2022, Bramble Energy was awarded just under £1 million of Government funding from BEIS (now the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero — DESNZ), to develop its hydrogen fuel cell technology as a solution to replace diesel engines in boats. The vessel, which has been built from the ground up, has been under construction in Sheffield where Bramble engineers have created a completely new design of a hydrogen system to meet marine requirements. The technology has the potential to save each boat using this powertrain technology up to 12 tonnes of CO₂ per year. The global maritime sector contributes to 940 million tonnes of CO₂ per year, which equates to about 2.5% of global greenhouse gases.

Zero-emission solutions
Tom Mason, Bramble Energy’s co-founder and CEO, said: “While road transportation has arguably had the greatest amount of attention in terms of developing zero-emission solutions, the reality is there is a massive urgency to decarbonise across all transportation sectors – especially marine. CO₂ emissions from the marine sector are staggering, a situation that requires a quick, convenient, cost-effective technology that also provides no compromise when it comes to performance.

“In a short amount of time we have designed, developed, built, and launched a working demonstration of our PCBFC technology within a marine application. Our solution can meet a range of power needs and is easily scalable, which is the exact catalyst the industry needs to make a seamless shift to hydrogen.”